Planetary Poetry, Woven Into a Movie

‘Samsara,’ Ron Fricke’s Cinematic Portrait of the Globe

WITH exotic imagery fit for the cover of National Geographic, the new film “Samsara” ranges across the globe: there are fantastical tiered temples in verdant Myanmar and glorious Japanese mohawks, the natural wonders of Namibian sand dunes and orderly production lines of modern agribusiness in China and Europe. The locations are unnamed, and a rich, varied score is heard instead of political or social commentary. One striking image flows into the next, loosely organized according to the cyclical Hindu notion of birth and destruction that gives the film its Sanskrit title.

And that is just as Ron Fricke, responsible for the critically praised cinematography on his own “Baraka” (1992) and the earlier “Koyaanisqatsi” (1982), prefers it.

“When images go together, they want to start telling you a linear story,” Mr. Fricke, who directed and shot “Samsara,” said by phone from the San Francisco Bay area. “That’s not what you want to do. If it makes too much sense, then you’re back into making a documentary.”

But in an era when the Internet and television overflow with eye-popping imagery from around the world, “Samsara,” which opens Friday, raises the question whether there is room anymore for the kind of global symphony for which “Baraka” and “Koyaanisqatsi” were celebrated. Indeed, “Samsara” is a twofold throwback. For one, it is shot in grand, rarely used 70 millimeter, a medium invented for delectation in cinemas. This comes at a time when the most popular recent panoramic project, BBC’s “Planet Earth,” from which Mr. Fricke garnered ideas for locations, was unabashedly a small-screen project.

In its mission, too, there is something old-fashioned about “Samsara.” Though touched with a certain spiritual mindfulness, the film is not intended to send a message. That’s a departure from similarly expansive, globally conscious nonfiction films in vogue now, like the critically acclaimed work of Michael Glawogger (“Workingman’s Death,” which depicts the same sulfur mines as “Samsara”) and Nikolaus Geyrhalter (“Abendland”) that also serve as probing sociological critique. And though Mr. Fricke views the ambitious chronicles of “Samsara” as beyond documentary, audiences may approach that global tour with expectations molded by the flood of recent films that present Earth and its diversity as something in need of saving, not just gazing.

The perspective of “Samsara” could instead be called cosmic, and its goals primarily aesthetic. “Our film is more about feelings and an inner journey than an intellectual experience,” Mark Magidson, who produced and co-edited the film and also worked on “Baraka,” said from Los Angeles. “We’re not trying to say anything.”

As a visual artist, Mr. Fricke said, he was influenced by a cinematic tradition of spectacle, sometimes wordless. “I grew up on David Lean films and Fellini films,” he said. “And the end of ‘2001’ was a life-changing moment. It was all nonverbal.”

Photo

Ron Fricke

The more immediate lineage for “Samsara” can be traced to the trilogy that began with “Koyaanisqatsi,” followed by “Powaqqatsi” and “Naqoyqatsi.” These energetic portraits of modernity were directed by Godfrey Reggio, but they relied on the visual standards set by Mr. Fricke in the first installment and propulsive scores by Philip Glass for their full splendor. (Live performances of Mr. Glass’s score made the first film a virtual concert of images.)

Mr. Reggio spoke of “Koyaanisqatsi” in terms of sensation, as a kind of apotheosis of second-unit photography. “The point of the view was to see that which is hidden in plain sight,” Mr. Reggio said by phone from his Red Hook, Brooklyn, office. “That which by virtue of its ordinariness is not seen, by virtue of how present it is, is unseeable, and that’s ordinary daily living.”

Human hyperactivity, a familiar feature of such global symphonies, makes its sped-up appearance in “Samsara” in shots of crowds in Japanese subways and Americans at exercise machines. But these do not press a polemical point, even alongside the aftermath of floods in New Orleans and an Iraq war veteran in uniform, his face scarred from burns. Mr. Fricke said the veteran sequence was “about rebirth.”

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

By contrast, Mr. Geyrhalter shows an array of occupations and activities across an ultramodern Europe in “Abendland”: police officers in training, actors in pornographic productions, revelers in a warehouse-sized beer hall. The HD imagery is relentless, a vision of fearsome order. Likewise, his earlier film “Our Daily Bread” covered factory practices similar to those in “Samsara.”

In an e-mail from Austria, Mr. Geyrhalter said his work belonged in a broader category in film history. “It could be seen as part of a much longer tradition, dating back to the very beginning of cinema, when the main goal was to capture images and make them accessible to an audience,” wrote Mr. Geyrhalter, who happily shoots his own work for television, adding that films that patiently record panoramas have a way of remaining timeless.

The question of the endurance of “Samsara” as a visual record was a concern for Mr. Fricke and Mr. Magidson. Before filming began, in 2007, they considered but decided against lighter, more portable digital cameras because of the rapid pace of changing digital standards. Besides, in their view 70 millimeter is the highest quality way to capture images.

“It was important to bring the material back in a format that was going to stand the test of time,” Mr. Magidson said, even as he noted the toil involved in lugging the 70-millimeter camera around the world. He added later, “I didn’t want to go to 25 countries and come back with something” that would soon be outdated.

Though the world they depict is in flux and sometimes in turmoil, it is presented in an unbroken, immersive string of pictures intended to transport, in all senses of the word. “We’re just trying to keep it flowing,” Mr. Fricke said, “so you don’t pop out of the flow when you watch.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 19, 2012, on Page AR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Planetary Poetry, Woven Into a Movie. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe